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Public Journalism NetworkMon, 12 Dec 2011 05:04:08 +0000http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5enhourly1Sign Up Now: SoCon12, Social Media and the Brews and News Fun-Raiserhttp://pjnet.org/post/2517/
http://pjnet.org/post/2517/#commentsMon, 12 Dec 2011 05:04:08 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2517Join us for 1.5 days of learning, sharing and networking at our SoCon12 and Brews and News Fun-Raiser weekend on Feb. 3-4, 2012.

Registration is now open for SoCon12, our annual social media conference at Kennesaw State University outside of Atlanta on Saturday, Feb 4, 2012 . Every year we sell out our 325 seats early, so sign up now. Don’t get shut out.

Plus be sure to do some extra networking at our Brews and News Fun-Raiser for our Center for Sustainable Journalism and our centerpiece Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, JJIE.org on Friday night Feb. 3, 2012 at the SweetWater Brewery in Atlanta.

Steve Rubel

One SoCon12 headliner is Steve Rubel, executive vice president for EVGlobal Strategy and Insights for Edelman – the world’s largest independent public relations firm. His topic: Transmedia storytelling. Learn how Facebook, YouTube videos, videogames, comics and more could all play a role in your transmedia strategy.

Jeff Haynie will lead off the day with an overview of what to expect on the mobile front and he should know. Haynie is Co-founder and CEO of Appcelerator, which just got $15 million in new a round of funding because as TechCrunch writes:

The company … took the opportunity to provide an update on its growth. It now has 30,000 mobile applications on over 30 million mobile devices in its portfolio and 1.6 million developers in its ecosystem. This makes it if not the largest, then certainly one of the largest, mobile development platforms in existence today.

SoCon12 also will have more than 30 breakout sessions covering a wide variety of topics including this sampling:

Creating and Leveraging Sustainable Social Media Communities

Quit the Daily Grind: A Former Newspaper Reporter’s Social-Media Journey to Freelance Success

The Creative (not creepy) Use of Social Media Analytics

Create, Connect, Collaborate: Words that Work Online

Crowd Financing 101

Jeff Haynie

More sessions are coming online daily, so keep watching the site.

There is an early bird special right now Dec. 12 for both SoCon12 and the Brews and News Fun-Raiser so register now before the special lapses. See you on Feb. 4-5 for the Southeast’s premiere social media conference.

In writing the rebuttal, I used the criteria of the AJC’s PolitiFact column which rates public statements from pants-on-fire lies to fully true. PolitiFact says when a “statement is accurate but leaves out important details. That’s our definition of Half True.”

Half truth, that’s also my definition of this six-figure university salary investigative piece. It is accurate but leaves out important details.

I believe my rebuttal, using numbers, provides more context in helping understand who actually is getting those six-figures and why. Greater context would have enhanced the level of debate among those who think state-financed faculty, administrators and staff are overpaid and those who think they are underpaid. Instead judging from the comments of the politician in the AJC story and one of the students paying tuition, the impression was these six-figures salary are an outrage that needs to be fixed.

Half-truth journalism, because of its lack of depth, sounds much more sensational and quickly gets on the radar of grandstanding policy makers and politicians, which results in bad policy and bad lawmaking that stays in place long after those headlines disappear.

It really pains me to write this critique because Georgia is a state dominated by one party and it has a history of inequalities and many varieties of malfeasance and incompetency. Strong investigative journalism is needed. Indeed, it is essential for the long-term health of our local, state, regional and national democracies.

Many of the AJC’s investigations are spot-on and much needed. However, in its zeal to become known as an investigative, muckraking paper, some of its investigations resemble 6 o’clock TV, inch-deep investigative news rather than investigative reporting worthy of the state’s largest news organization. I am writing this in a hope that the leadership, reporters, editors and investigative units at the AJC take some time for reflection, and, perhaps, have some folks they respect review and critique everything that is pegged as investigative journalism.

I am afraid the crooked, unethical and incompetent folks who have been legitimately investigated will use my words to tar all the AJC investigations. This piece is not aimed at defending their actions nor at defending the bureaucratic systems that fail to serve us well. All of them need to be investigated, but that comes with a responsibility that requires in-depth reporting that goes deep beyond the veneer.

As readers and members of the public, we must demand it.

Leonard Witt is the executive director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. Its mission is to find ways to ensure that high quality, ethically journalism has an enduring place in our democracy.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 was a good day for our Juvenile Justice Information Exchange — JJIE.org reporter Ryan Schill, for Kennesaw State University and for me. Wednesday, Schill became a graduate of Kennesaw State and editor John Fleming published Schill’s story the Straight Dope on Fake Dope. It’s a well written and researched story, and right after we posted it, Youth Today a national newspaper asked to reprint it. Of course, we said yes.

For me it was a special day because last semester Schill was in my Advance Media Writing class. I quickly noticed that Schill has that special talent of being able to do research, get out on the street to do the reporting and then put it all together in a well written story. I asked him to start writing for us here at the JJIE.org and he has produced under the tutelage of editor Fleming.

Ryan Schill

It is wonderful to see students excel, and this has been a good semester. I taught our Journalism and Citizen Media capstone course for graduating seniors. They focused on Marietta, Ga. My students did fantastic work producing both videos and an online magazine. Take a look at Marietta in Motion. Unlike students in the past, today’s journalism students must have a range of abilities and these students do.

So congratulations to my capstone students and to all of Wednesday’s Department of Communication graduates and, of course, to Schill, who just signed a contract to do more writing for us. It was, indeed, a good day for Kennesaw State University and for the JJIE.org.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2507/feed/0Nonviolence, Nicholas Kristof, Gene Sharp and Mehttp://pjnet.org/post/2500/
http://pjnet.org/post/2500/#commentsMon, 18 Apr 2011 18:13:49 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2500Yesterday, Sunday, April 17, 2011, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote an opinion piece The Power of Mockery. A month earlier on March 17, 2011, I conducted this video interview with Kristof during his lecture visit to Kennesaw State University. In the video, I mention Gene Sharp, the man credited with writing the nonviolence playbook which helped overthrow tyrants including the latest to fall in the Middle East.

Watch the video, it is indeed the precursor to Kristof’s Sunday column, which he was obviously forming in his mind at the time of the interview. Did I help a little? Maybe, watch and you decide.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2500/feed/0NYTimes Pay Plan — Did Henry Blodget Get It Right 2 years ago?http://pjnet.org/post/2494/
http://pjnet.org/post/2494/#commentsFri, 18 Mar 2011 19:42:32 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2494When I first read the New York Times’ recently announced Digital Subscription Plan, I remembered reading something similar and posting about it here at PJNet.org.

We’re looking for a high energy journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit to run the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE.org). This established online news operation is getting local and national attention for strong reporting about children and the law. The person we hire must be self motivated and determined to succeed, with a solid work ethic and great news judgment. You will work with a small team to gather news and information from a niche beat, report compelling stories in multi-media formats, and edit the work of other writers. Be ready to roll up your sleeves and network with news sources, attend events and conferences, and break original stories. This experimental journalism project has potential to expand and we need the right person to lead the way. Writing samples will be required.

It really is a great job and this experiment in niche journalism is growing rapidly. We now have 10,000 unique visitors a month, with about 1,000 page views a day. Interested in helping it grow more and expand beyond Georgia, then apply now.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2492/feed/0Free: From Dictatorship to Democracy — The Egypt Playbookhttp://pjnet.org/post/2481/
http://pjnet.org/post/2481/#commentsFri, 25 Feb 2011 22:32:43 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2481If you want to learn how to stage a nonviolent revolution, then the place to start is the free downloadable book From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp.

Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.

This is Dr Gene Sharp the man now credited with the strategy behind the toppling of the Egyptian government.

Gene Sharp is the world’s foremost expert on non-violent revolution. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, his books slipped across borders and hidden from secret policemen all over the world.

Me, I am going to read the handbook this weekend. I do believe I can think of a few items right here in my home state of Georgia that might demand a bit of nonviolent resistance. More later.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2481/feed/0SoCon11: Another Social Media Success Storyhttp://pjnet.org/post/2475/
http://pjnet.org/post/2475/#commentsTue, 08 Feb 2011 19:03:24 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2475We are beginning to put up photos and content from our SoCon11, social media conference. You’ll find some fun photos from our 5th Anniversary networking party, including this shot of our Center for Sustainable Journalism folks who put on the conference, including from left Noah Echols, Ellen Miller, Leonard Witt, Clay Duda and a masked Carole Arnold. As you will see from the photo from Saturday, we again packed more than 300 attendees into the Social Science Building auditorium at Kennesaw State University. See what the #SoCon11 tweeters said here.

Here are the slide shows of some of the Power Point presentations. Watch for more content coming up soon. If you attended and want to use a photo for your blog or newsletter, feel free.

Thanks to everyone from our staff to the more than 25 presenters to the 300 plus attendees for making it a wonderful 1.5 days of learning, sharing and networking. See you next year at SoCon12.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2475/feed/0SoCon11 — 5th Anniversary, Fullhouse for Social Media Eventhttp://pjnet.org/post/2473/
http://pjnet.org/post/2473/#commentsThu, 03 Feb 2011 20:22:18 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2473Our networking party tomorrow night at the Carter Center kicks off SoCon11. It is the 5th Anniversary of the Southeast’s premier social media conference produced and hosted by our Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. As with last year, we have a sell out crowd of 300 for Saturday. On Friday night we expect about 200.

Although it is too late for this year, be sure to watch for next year’s SoCon12. Those of you who have registered, see you soon.

]]>http://pjnet.org/post/2473/feed/0SchoolHouse Witness Project in Knight’s Second Roundhttp://pjnet.org/post/2469/
http://pjnet.org/post/2469/#commentsMon, 31 Jan 2011 21:14:10 +0000Leonard Witthttp://pjnet.org/?p=2469I just submitted our SchoolHouse Witness Project idea for the Knight News Challenge’s Second Round. We made the first cut. Now comes the tough part, do we make it into Round 3? This is a partnership with the Konpa Group, which is part of the Ushahidi network, which has done great things in information collecting via the mobile texting space in Africa.